Drive-by shooting Haiti… Pt1

Many times during my travels I’ve been torn between the extent of risk I am willing to take to make each trip fulfilling.

The risk starts from the very moment I choose to travel alone. And the added pressure is whether to carry my camera in public to practise another of my passions; photojournalism, or leave my equipment in the safety of a security box…

Depending on the country or city I’m in, a lot of the times I’ve had to make a conscious decision and choose the latter option to be on the safe side… Just one negative incident could tarnish my so-far positive travel experiences. And while in Haiti, the desperate conditions of the people doesn’t make this country an exception. The factors against me of being a foreigner unable to communicate in the language, in possession of equipment that could make someone a quick buck, makes me an easy target.

The streets might be freshly laid since the 2010 earthquake, but they don’t offer a layer of security. The gunshots I hear at night are warning signals of a troubled society. The new constructions are a façade of the staggering mount of social issues that still haven’t been addressed. The country’s social problems have in a sense been swept under the ‘road’.

So with security playing an important role on my conscious, many times I’ve had to adapt and opt for another method of shooting people (no weapons involved). I’m reminded of a phrase I heard coined by Ghanaian photographer Nana Kofi Acquah during the BlogCamp Ghana event in Accra earlier this year; “Drive-by shooting”!

Every corner of Port-au-Prince tells an interesting story. Many of which I saw with my eyes, and tried to capture through the lens of my camera. “Blink and you miss a shot” is literally what happened on many occasions. Be it in the passenger seat of Nepalese journalist Shanti Paudel’s dusty Toyota, or the comfort of the Carib Tours bus, this is a different take on “point and shoot”!

Here is a collection of photos I captured from the safety of a vehicle… Drive-by shooting Haiti (with my camera)! #photographyonthego